Painted in Song
by Otaku786
Summary: There were several comparisons to be made between Earth and Pandora. Pandora was beautiful, teeming with colorful life and shared through the beautiful heart-songs of native Singers. Earth was where they'd cremated his twin brother, Mark, and asked Puck to take his place. Earth had destroyed his life and family. But Pandora introduced a new life with his soulmate, Kurt. -PKBB
1. Prologue: Al Niente

**A/N: **This was my submission for the Puckurt BigBang, but circumstances led me to post it separately. Hope you all enjoy!

**Warning:** This story contains graphic violence; major and minor character death on a war front; pre- and full-on slash; male pregnancy; suggested albeit mostly one-sided twincest.

**Disclaimer:** The original world of Avatar belongs to James Cameron, though it is more than slightly altered here. The Prologue and Chapter 1 were betaed by MorganMcl, and all of the breathtaking artwork - from the story and fanmix covers to the maniped banners and dividers - was all done by the amazing MariMcsly, my personal cheerleader. I can't thank either of them enough!

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**Prologue: ****_Al Niente: To Nothing, Fade to Silence_**

* * *

Before…everything.

Before he was asked to fill Mark's shoes. Before he found out that a fucker with a gun took his brother's life, when it should have been him. Before a big hole had been blown through the middle of his own damned life…Back, before—before he was unlucky enough to be drafted, and Mark was lucky enough to join the WMHS program. Back before their parents, after years of hiding, had to separate them according to some stupid law, forcing them to live two separate lives instead of one joined at the hip. Way back, when they were just two boys with the same face, the same hopes, and the same fascination with the dying world they'd been born into.

Way back then, he and Mark would have the same dreams.

Some people would blame it on that special connection between twins—the one where they could empathize and sync with each other—so interlinked that their thoughts were the same. Twin telepathy, or some crap like that. Whatever the explanation, they both used to dream in color.

More often than not, they only dreamed in the color palette of the Earth as they'd always known it to be: the gray of ash clouds and smog-bleached skies. Processed food, and unfocused eyes, and lackluster skin. The brown of stale leaves, dry earth, and rusted blood, the white of faded edges, and the black of the darkness always looming on the horizon, no matter the time of day. There was even red: the scorching tongue of familiar, greedy flames that consumed anything in their path, the same flames that usually overwhelmed their dreams.

But sometimes, when the monsters in uniforms kept their long, metal arms to themselves and stayed at the back of their subconsciousness, he and Mark had been able to dream freely—like the children they should've been allowed to be. They dreamed in the colors of the Old Earth, as it was told to them in stories, during the nights back when their parents could hide their identical existence.

Stories of green grass and greener leaves, of air uncontaminated and smelling of something called pine. Air that didn't have to be filtered before vents could be opened. Stories of clear, drinkable water, and the deep, deep blue of old oceans that used to cover most of the planet.

They dreamed of the blue sky that used to smile at human life, laced with pure white clouds promising paradise. He and Mark used to be captivated by the tales of creatures that roamed freely, before the EPA deemed them endangered and contained them in reservations (or before they became extinct altogether). They dreamed of a planet teeming with color, of greens and blues and purples everywhere, of scales and wings and fur and feathers. Of orange and yellow that wasn't fire, of red that wasn't blood, and stripes and sparkles and hopeful light. They dreamed of a planet that lived, not just survived.

They dreamed in rainbows of a planet that sang with life.

But the Earth in those dreams was only a fairytale, after all. The Earth they knew was too fucking monotonous to have ever been so animated. It was much easier to believe that the stories were actually of another place, far, far away from Earth and its deathly halo.

Pandora.

It plagued the media as the only topic not having to do with war and crime and "natural" disasters – it was the planetary-body said to literally "sing" with life and beauty. There were stories of breathtaking sunsets. Of how the lack of pollution and thin atmosphere provided astonishingly clear views of nearby celestial beings; the swirling purple and greens of Polyphemus and its other moons suspended in deep violet space. The untouched forests of Pandora were rumored to be vast, threatening to swallow you into its abundant greenness, with its innumerable amount of colorful flora and the most exotic, deadly fauna you wouldn't live long enough to appreciate.

Most importantly, though, rumor had it that absolutely everything to ever live on the planet possessed its own song.

Of course, most people dubbed the "information leaks" as hype to earn money for the space programs. But, as children, he and Mark believed the scientists' reports that all the tree roots on Pandora pulsed in a single, drum-like, heartbeat-like rhythm. That the leaves whistled tunes in the wind. They believed that, if they listened, they would hear the flowers calling, or that each species of animal could compose a symphony. They believed it when they heard of the Singers, the humanoid natives of Pandora, who could croon euphonies that healed the sick.

He and Mark believed in Pandora's magical power of song, which was said to control a planet-wide neural network of living and dead, past and present – because it meant that all hope wasn't lost. Believing in the magic of Pandora, the "Musical Moon of Polyphemus", gave the young twins an escape from the destruction that was their reality

Back then, before…everything. It had been the twins' color filled dream to go to Pandora one day. They'd been ten year olds with stars in their eyes, and unpredicted futures ahead of them.

…Twenty years had passed since then.

He was finally fulfilling their dream. Only, now his hazel eyes were hardened from more recent dreams, memories, of shrapnel and fire, and blood and hopelessness. They knew numbness and the stress of uncertainty, and the pain of dying a death that wasn't their own. They knew the weight of the emptiness of total darkness, if only for a few moments, and the overwhelming sense of loneliness that came with severing such an enrooted connection.

And Mark's eyes…well, Mark's eyes were ashes in a jar now, but he knew that his brother's eyes never lost those stars. Maybe, if they hadn't had to be separated, if the law had been different and he'd been able to follow his dream too, he would've still believed in the magic of Pandora. He would've still believed that Pandora could be any different from Earth, the "Dying World".

Maybe, if things had been like how they were before, he would've been more shocked to discover that Pandora was nothing like they'd imagined.

_"...I love you, Noah."_


	2. You Don't Dream in Cryo

**Part I: Chapter I: _You Don't Dream in Cryo_**

* * *

Cryosleep, in a sentence, defied Puck's very nature. Cryosleep, in a word, sucked. In cryo, he hadn't dreamed at all.

For exactly five years, nine months and twenty-two days (according to the caretaker who'd been passing out barf-bags on the ISV), Puck's body and mind had been suspended in a period of hibernation. No basic needs to eat, drink, or even pee. No aging at all, which meant that technically, even though he was now twenty-nine, he passed for twenty-three. Just like Mark had been when…yeah. And most importantly, no dreaming – which was a blessing, as unwanted memories were suppressed for just a little while, but also a curse, as he'd come to rely on his fantasies to keep him sane.

Cryosleeping was standard for space-travel; hell, it was even common among wealthy extremists back on Earth, who'd waited their entire miserable lives for the technology to stop their own time for just a little while. Maybe they hoped that by the time they woke up, the world would've corrected itself. Instead, they awoke to find conditions even worse. Oh yeah, there were plenty of awakening and side effect stories. But learning something third-hand was way different from experiencing it himself. And nothing could have prepared Puck for the tiny explosions of color behind his eyeballs as his brain processes literally thawed and kicked into triple gear, trying to make up for so much lost time.

By the time he opened his eyes to peer around his cramped cryo-chamber, struggling to remember where the hell and _who_the hell he was, a headache had settled behind his temples and at the base of his skull. He couldn't move anything below his neck, and for a few, terrifying moments in which panic gripped his chest, Puck thought he'd lost the use of his arms as well. Memories of the explosion that took away his legs threatened to attack his mind. Fortunately, though, a caretaker came to eject him from his chamber before he could be swept away by ghosts. That's when he slowly began to remember what was going on.

"Are we there yet?" Puck slurred. It even took him a second to remember where "there" was. He was still incoherent enough that the flashlight shone into his eyes didn't startle him. The caretaker went on to check his vitals, and Puck focused on the guy's face-mask as a point of concentration. He felt like his body was rolling, even though he was strapped down, and it made him nauseous. Around him, caretakers floated in the zero-gravity from chamber to chamber, tending to the other 10th voyagers.

"Yeah," the caretaker looking him over said, as he checked the numbered tag on Puck's wrist. "We're there, sunshine. We're there."

The initial nausea and discomfort eventually subsided, but Puck still felt no small amount of disorientation as he was released into the zero-gravity and directed to his cubby labeled "Puckerman, N." They hadn't been allowed to bring much, but Puck was nothing if not determined. He'd insisted on bringing Mark on the 10th voyage to Pandora despite everything, his remains in a sturdy container – they'd taken away his brother's life, but Puck wouldn't let them take away Mark's dream when he'd been so close. They'd do this together.

Grabbing his black pack from the cubby, he patted down the sides, taking small solace in the feel of Mark's jar. He kept the precious cargo close to his chest as he and the rest of the voyagers prepared for landing, were given a short briefing on protocol, and equipped for arrival at the RDA's base-camp.

Now, Puck slung the stuffed duffel onto his back. Mark's jar rested as a reassuring presence between his shoulder blades while Puck faced the new world outside. His breathing echoed harshly behind the mask of his exopack as he settled into the uncomfortable contraption that was _supposed_to be a wheelchair. He secured his driving gloves and gripped the thin wheels, whose traction briefly surprised him. And then, Puck rolled forward, toward the brightness outside.

A shadowed figure stepped into view down the narrow aisle, silhouetted against the light, and Puck could only make out the clipboard in the man's hands. "Let's go Special Case, do _not _make me wait for you!" the man barked, and he watched Puck roll by him before marking something off on his clipboard. _Puckerman, 20_– Check.

Special Case, Puck mulled over in his head. There was no such thing as an ex-marine, screw what any of those bastards whispered when they knew he was listening (bunch of teenage girls). Puck may have been pulled out because of his accident, and he hadn't even wanted to be there in the first place, but he couldn't change the past. And he'd never lose the attitude. So, shrugging, Puck just kind of brushed off the reference to his situation for now, instead taking in his surroundings as he cautiously descended the shuttle's ramp.

The asphalt was the same.

That was Puck's first thought as his wheels met the pavement – the asphalt matched the camps' back on Earth. The sky was the same too: white and overcast with smog from the looming factory, releasing a steady cloud of black smoke and tinting the air above the camp in the lightest shade of gray. Even the shine of the metal buildings and the glint of weapon carts looked familiar. The recognizable whir of hovercraft and stomping of AMP suits sounded around him, causing the ground to tremble subtly while Puck's eyes wearily flitted about. The line of 10thvoyagers still jogged across the large, flat platform, filing directly into the base as commanded. Meanwhile, small crews rode automatic carts to and from the shuttle behind Puck, unloading its cargo with practiced efficiency. The hard set of the men's faces and bark of directions brought Puck a sense of unpleasant nostalgia, as did the sight of their crisp fatigues.

But something was off. Maybe, Puck thought, it was the noticeable lack of soldiers doing drills in tight formation, which left the platform looking relatively empty. Only the unloading crews and a few scattered ampsuits seemed to have any sort of purpose; the orders given to them reflected like the dull sky in their eyes. Others, like the few watching the 10s as they jogged past, just loitered. They held their rifles lazily, nudging each other with them as they snickered over the "fresh meat". Their stances spelled firm but cocky, bored but comfortable, as if they were used to being given the mundane jobs. Like making sure the unarmed new recruits wouldn't dare try to attack, for example, as if any of them would have the balls. Out here, the army dogs were just hired guns, taking the money from the company, but they wielded those guns with deadly skill.

At the moment though, they just looked bored, and Puck had to wonder if the rotation of troops was all that people looked forward to nowadays, like back on Earth. Where the hell was everybody?

Scanning further, Puck lingered on the fence in the distance. Maybe, Puck thought, the presence looming just outside the camp's perimeter made his head tingle so weirdly. The fence was three times as tall as what Puck remembered from camps on Earth, and was probably reinforced with more than barbed wire. Electrical barbed wire, maybe? Either way, it only seemed to emphasize the camp's trapped feeling. Puck could barely see tree tops just on the other side, and from where he sat, they were nothing more than shadows whose green faded in the fog. Just like Earth. And yet, somehow, they seemed to be calling –

Puck's attention was ripped from the distance as he turned his chair sharply to the left, instinctively avoiding an approaching AMP. The bastard probably didn't even see him in his chair.

The towering machine stomped past, causing Puck's wheels to shudder with each heavy footstep; the luggish _thump! thump! thump! _and the pull of mechanical muscles reminded him of his days in the military. Except, now it was different. Now, he had to worry about being flattened into a pile of bleached grits, and he almost chuckled when he realized that he and Mark used to fear the same thing when they were children. Then he remembered he wasn't supposed to laugh yet, and Puck's fists tightened on his wheels while his jaw clenched. He and Mark used to fear a lot of things, come to think of it – some were silly, but others were very, very real.

…But those days were long gone, and now, whatever fears he had were his to face alone. Well…maybe not completely alone, but Mark's urn in his pack was a significantly smaller presence than his brother used to be.

"Look out Hot Rod!" the suit's driver called after he'd passed, bringing Puck back to the present. Puck just mumbled a "Bite me, asshole", forgetting not to care about his disability as he shook himself from nagging thoughts and kept rolling.

He slowed though, when a commotion came parading from the same direction that the AMP had come from. Jerking his head, Puck watched a procession of security officers – some in AMPs – reenter the camp through the nearest gate, followed by a large dump truck. The guys looked bedraggled, their fatigues were muddy and unkempt, but they chattered animatedly as if they weren't exhausted from years of mining foreign soil. They brought more life to the camp, bustling and jogging about like ants on a mission, as someone yelled for them to help unload the day's haul. And all of a sudden, Puck started to feel sick.

While the AMPs marched in a different direction, probably to their garage, Puck felt the wind of several SA-2 Samsons as they also came in to unload. In habitual fascination, Puck watched how one bobbed and hovered before landing, and he recognized the quickness with which the aircraft was swarmed. He'd never been in one like that before, one with the titling rotors, and he knew Mark would have loved it. For a second, he could have almost believed that he was back on Earth with his brother, watching the video logs of voyagers who'd rotated back. That is, he almost believed, until his thoughts were interrupted again by the large dump truck. At least it saved him from remembering his brother's deathly pale face.

Everything about the vehicle was imposing. Its overwhelming smell of exhaust, for one, and its insane size for another. Puck had never seen such a scaled land-rover up close before, and he immediately wished he hadn't had to – but he was forced to wait and stare as it dragged past.

It was an ugly, dingy yellow eyesore, and ungainly in nature with its bulkiness and slow crawl. Puck wondered if it was the engine or the damned machine itself groaning with stress as it thundered by right in front of him; it was noisy, like, _insanely _loud; the sheer sound of the dump truck caused the ground to vibrate, sending tremors up through Puck's thin wheels to his arms, down through his chest, shaking his core. It made the front part of his brain buzz (he was probably feeling the side-effects now), and he almost felt as lost as when he first woke up from cryo. Dimly, he recalled reading about this particular truck back on Earth, where its main electronics were manufactured. The journalists moronically called it the Hell Truck, "because it's hell to maneuver, and hell to be around," and it looked like they actually got something right.

The Hell Truck slowly but surely passed by in a blur of fading yellow screams and dark streaks of dirt.

Puck felt kind of light-headed, and it was becoming increasingly hard to focus enough to count how many oversized wheels forced the truck forward. His grip on his own flimsy-in-comparison wheels tightened, his jaw clenched harder, and Puck started to forget where he was. He abruptly felt the heavy weight of jet-lag settle deep into his mind and the legs he could not feel, and he wanted nothing more than to down some aspirin and get some rack. But he was supposed to be somewhere (…he was always supposed to be somewhere for somebody, like he should've been instead of Mark when…), and right now, he was supposed to be heading inside with the other 10s for a safety brief with the head of security.

Right, he thought tiredly. Now if only this freaking looming dump of a truck would hurry the fuck up –

Something caught his eye, then.

He automatically focused on it, latched onto the relief it offered from the discolored machinery, and the clothes, and the fog suspended over the camp. It was definitely a surprise, though not an unwelcomed one, and in that instant, Puck finally started to realize that he wasn't on Earth anymore. The Earth he knew hadn't seen colors stand so vibrantly despite – or rather, _in_spite of – their smothering surroundings, in a long while.

A streak of turquoise, and deep magenta.

Feathers.

They were the first that caught Puck's attention, before he noticed the others. Different combinations of color, each belonging to an arrow that jutted out of the Hell Truck's rear-most wheels, stuck out towards Puck at such awkward angles that it almost seemed deliberate. Like artwork.

There were more than ten of them, and a few combinations appeared more than once, the turquoise and deep magenta specifically. The arrows pierced the wheel deep enough to stay firmly lodged, as they rolled with the wheel, but…that was just it: the wheel _kept rolling_, invincibly. Obviously, with Pandora's terrain taken into account, the wheels would be unaffected by something as super old-fashioned as arrows. The heavy duty, triply reinforced wheels against plain wood that could snap so easily? Not even a competition that he would've considered before that moment. It was almost laughable.

And yet…Even as the Hell Truck finally moved on and out of Puck's path to the main building (where one official was calling "Move it inside _now_, Wheels!" like a douche), taking its cacophonic bodily functions with it, Puck just sat there staring after the colorful feathers that jutted proudly out of the condescendingly huge wheel. Because as hopeless as whatever the attempts may have seemed, somebody, somewhere, had dared to try.

And that, right there, made Puck feel just a little better.

Once inside the main building, Puck was directed to the dining hall which, he was told, also served as something like a conference room. The hallway to the dining hall was crowded and humming, bodies weaving with purpose every which way – but despite the activity, the scrubs and fatigues blended into the same pale and ashen shades of the camp outside. The glowing signs hanging from the ceiling and built into the walls beamed at Puck as he rolled by, but the "Welcome to Pandora" in white against plain blue appeared just as surreal as the signs back on Earth. It was as stupid as welcoming him to a new battlefront. Or better, to the morgue where his brother was cremated (and Puck unconsciously adjusted the duffel on his back in reminder of Mark's jar).

One would think that arriving on a new planet would call for a more dramatic greeting.

He soon spied the 10th voyagers gathered in the dining hall to his left. As he turned and passed under a final, painfully impersonal "Welcome to Pandora" sign, along with several other message boards, he caught the end of whatever introduction the person pacing the aisle was giving.

"…every living thing that crawls, flies, or buries its shit in the dirt wants to kill you, eat your eyes for caviar, and wear your genitals as jewelry." And that really wasn't what he'd been expecting to roll in on, but okay.

Puck pushed his chair slowly down the center aisle, eyes scanning the 10s. At first it seemed like a lot of faces, but altogether they made such a small group with how they crowded in the very first few rows of the tables, even if the tables were super long. A short line of guys and a couple of hard looking women in fatigues stood at the front, silhouetted against the glass wall with opened horizontal shutters and staring blankly ahead. They didn't glance at him until he stopped in the center aisle, close enough to be considered part of the group, but far enough to give the pacing man some space.

The guy was kind of tall, and built. Like a jock. His forearms bulged where they were crossed over his chest, and his shoulders were broad. His forehead was almost as tall; firm wrinkles set his brow, and his blue eyes were shadowed by his low, scowling eyebrows. His nose was straight. His sandy brown hair was thinly swept, and as he paced closer to Puck, Puck could identify the several colored patches over the guy's heart that displayed his rank as a Colonel. He also noticed the scratch marks on right side of the guy's head: thick, parallel jagged lines of healed tissue running from his cheekbone and eyebrow, through his hair, and stopping above his ear.

They obviously weren't new, and there was no telling where they'd come from, but they managed to hammer in the man's words just a bit harder. Puck stopped himself from staring by reaching behind his head to lift his duffel from his back and into his lap. Folding his arms over the shape of Mark's urn inside, he warded off any possible anxiety that cryo's side effects also included. Puck focused back on the Colonel when the man stopped at the end of the aisle and scanned his audience, before leisurely pacing toward Puck again.

"We have an indigenous population of humanoids, here on Pandora." The Colonel said, with a noticeable drawl. It captured Puck's attention almost immediately, and he sat up in his chair a little straighter as he focused on the man's dark blue eyes. "Most, if not all of you, have probably heard of 'em. They're big, their reflexes are almost feline, and their bones are reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fibers. They're also fond of arrows, dipped in a neurotoxin that'll stop your heart in one minute."

Puck thought about the arrows stuck in the wheels of the dump truck – turquoise and deep magenta. The colored feathers had been so…well, pretty, and it was hard to believe that on the other end of them was a death sentence. He tried to imagine a Singer crafting the arrow, carefully attaching the feathers, dipping the head into a fatal poison before shooting it at the giant alien machine. But the old image of the Singer in his head conflicted with the new description he'd just been given; before, he'd imagined an angelic Siren looking creature, maybe with a fairy's wings, weaving thread with the same intricacy that it weaved harmonies, sitting in a forest under the night sky by a waterfall, peaceful as you please. And as lame as that sounded, it had been what got Puck to sleep at night for years. But now, when he tried to visualize, the stunning picture blurred with an ugly yellow bleed-over from the dump truck.

"Y'all know them as the Singers-" the Colonel was still talking. "-and they are very hard to kill. As head of security, it's my job to keep you alive."

The man pivoted and walked halfway back down the aisle with his hands behind his back, then paused to make eye contact with other people. Puck stared at the back of his mud colored shirt for a few more moments before drifting off towards the window.

"But I won't." the Colonel went on plainly. "Not with all of you; it's just not possible. If you want to survive, you've got to obey the rules." and he continued walking like he owned the place toward the front. Puck absently glanced down at the man's black boots. Like a fucking Nazi, he thought distantly. Cryo's delayed effects made it hard to focus on too much at once.

"Pandora rules." Here, the Colonel reached the end of the aisle where the line of officers stood and turned to face the 10s as a whole once more. And there was a shift in the air, a subtle but present tenseness set in after the man's disturbing introduction. People would remember these words later – they'd have to, if they didn't want to be killed as soon as they set foot out the dining hall. "Rule number one, keep an exopack and weapon for defense with you at all times. You go out there unprepared, and you'll be dead quicker than a water-boy stranded at the fifty-yard line in the last minute of a championship game."

Sports references, Puck noted. It had been a long time since he – since _they_– had done something as blithe as play sports…but instead of losing himself in memories that he just couldn't deal with yet, Puck continued to look past the Colonel and the officials and out the shuttered window, half listening to rules already engraved in his memory from stolen moments back on Earth.

The picture outside dimmed with each passing minute that the Colonel continued to talk. Puck tried to imagine it, everything the man was saying could and would happen, tried to see past the dark fence that loomed in the distance and, supposedly – essentially – separated them from Hell. He conjured a hazy image of himself, like a phantom or simply a consciousness, flying over the fence and hurdling into the vast forest under a cloak of fog.

Maybe he'd encounter some of the beautiful deadly creatures he'd grown up reading about with Mark. There weren't many pictures of Pandoran fauna, since most were too dangerous to get near enough for a photo, and he'd always wondered what exactly the infamous Thanator looked like. Most likely he'd actually get to meet a Singer, and he'd ask them to sing for him – and his brother, since he planned to take Mark with him. Mark had always loved music. Maybe, Puck supposed, he would fly to the top of a sky-scraping tree just because of that trip to the Red Woods back on Earth, back before…just for old times' sake. And he'd look out over the world they'd dreamt about for so long.

And then, he'd turn to grab Mark's hand, smile at his brother, and say, "We made it."

* * *

But, Mark was dead.

Finn had to remind himself every time he glanced over at the man in the wheelchair. It would've been so easy to believe that the bullet had only hit Mark's spine, rendering him a paraplegic, instead of through his brain, rendering him dead. Mark was dead.

And Finn thought he'd accepted what happened to his friend, grieving just enough for the man who was supposed to be his wingman – remembering his bright smile, missing the nature boy's antics. As his brain slowly frosted over in cryo, Finn had cried. The tears had frozen along with his body, and when he'd woken up his face felt gross, but the hurt was lessened. He'd turned to worrying for Mark's brother then, because even though Finn was an only child, the way Mark always went on about his brother always gave Finn this weird, warm tugging in his gut. There was more than shared blood and genome there; it was love, in perhaps the simplest form Finn had never experienced (his relationships with girls were always complicated, even with his mom) – sweet and pure.

He remembered how a few guys got down on Mark, calling him an incestuous fag (which, Finn now cringed from repeating even in his head) because of how Mark described his brother. And how he was never sure what to feel when Mark didn't snap back at them, wondering if maybe the rumors were true because that look in Mark's eyes was something he'd never seen before. Later though, only months before he died, actually, when Mark sat him down and explained things – everything – Finn felt like a douche for feeling so conflicted when it came to, essentially, his best friend.

Finn had never met Mark's beloved brother, his identical older twin of just a few hours. Noah. He knew that Mark snuck off during the now-and-thens he could, off to see Noah the marine, because after they'd turned eighteen the twins weren't given any scheduled time to see each other – so they had to make do with what they could. And every time Mark came back from wherever, he looked just a little bit happier, but also just a little bit more worn down; his smile would be genuine, but a sadness weighed in his eyes and heart that even occasionally oblivious Finn could pick up on. The guy was almost fucking broken when he came back one day and told Finn that Noah was in the hospital. Some explosion or something. (And oh yeah, that was the same day they sat down and Mark told him everything, Finn remembered.)

It'd hurt Finn that he couldn't do anything against the law to help his bro, because he knew how much Noah meant to Mark. And he knew the feeling was mutual, which is how he knew how much Mark meant to Noah. And that's why he worried about Noah when he learned of Mark's murder: because if Mark looked ready to off himself after Noah's accident, he couldn't imagine what the marine would do. So with his own grief tucked away and cushioned in memories, Finn prepared to deal with Noah's grief once he met him. Because Noah had to be as awesome as Mark, which meant that they were automatically bros, and that meant that he had to be there for Noah in case he tried to hurt himself like Mark tried to a few times. (Finn eventually figured out that something tipped Mark off the deep end, but he never found out what it had been.)

Finn thought he'd been prepared.

But damn, it was so hard to believe Mark was dead in the first place. As soon as the guy rolled up the aisle, Finn actually started to stand up because he thought his friend was there – alive and…okay, not well, but still alive.

Wrong.

Dude was in a wheel chair for one, just like Mark told him Noah would be, if Finn ever met him. He thought it was the guy's Mohawk that tipped him off too, because Mark had been clean shaven when he last saw him alive, but then Finn realized it was something else: the firm set of the guy's mouth, maybe? No…no, it was deeper than that. Maybe it was the scowl of his eyebrows?

Finn quickly sat back down when Colonel Menkins turned back to pace his way. But from where he sat in the aisle seat, next to some guy with a fro and glasses who breathed funny, Finn stole glances at Noah Puckerman, who stared out the window pretty much the entire time, except when Menkins seemed to be speaking right to him (probably an effect of cryo). He tried to figure out what set Noah so far apart from his brother.

Finn got his answer soon after the safety brief was over. The hallway buzzed just like the halls of the program's headquarters back on Earth. People trying to figure out where they were sleeping, when dinner was (something Finn was wondering himself; he freaked out a little when he realized he hadn't had food in almost six years!), or just getting a feel of the place while they figured out where they were supposed to be. Being as tall as he was, Finn easily saw over the heads of most people around him, but it took him a second to spot the guy down low, wheeling his odd looking chair through the crowd.

Finn gripped the duffel strap over his left shoulder as he sped up; weaving around some guys in uniforms ("Watch it lurch!" "Sorry!"), his eyes locked on the back of the Mohawk ahead.

"Noah!" he called as he got closer. After a second's hesitation, the Mohawk jerked, and the gloved hands paused in their movement on the wheels.

Puck didn't recognize the voice, but suddenly it was right behind him and calling him a name that he hadn't used in years. Puck looked up and to his left, where the Big Friendly Giant himself loomed with dark eyes, darker hair, and a suspiciously bright grin. Multiple bags adorned the guy, one over each of his shoulders and a couple hanging by his waist. Puck never took kindly to being looked down on, but in this dude's case, there was no other way to make eye contact; the guy had some serious height. And he was unfamiliar. "You're Noah, right? Mark's brother. You look just like him."

Which…just, _ow_.

"…Prefer Puck." Puck said lowly, eyeing the guy and trying to ignore the stab of pain deep in his chest, but to little avail. He adjusted the duffel in his lap, skimming his hand unconsciously over Mark's urn. And he wondered how many people would greet him with that from now on: You look just like _him_…If it hurt like this every time, Puck was going to shoot someone. Possibly himself.

Finn's smile dropped a little when Noah – "Puck" did he say? What kind of name was that? – looked up at him with hazel eyes. Their color was achingly familiar, the same bright brown with a touch of green that made them look amber, as beautiful as Mark's (in a totally not gay way).

But…the shading was wrong. That's what it was: these eyes were tinged and laced in pain. Finn suddenly wondered how much time Puck had actually been given to grieve before his emotions were frozen in cryo, and when he did the math, it wasn't nearly enough time. Finn couldn't help but pity the guy, not just for Mark's death, but for all the crap they'd gotten in life just because of society's stupid laws. But…he guessed that right then was not the time to curse out the government. So, smiling in full, Finn offered his hand to Noah (he'd ask about the Puck-thing later), who'd resumed wheeling his chair so that Finn had to keep walking. They were headed in the same direction.

"Nice to meet you, then. I'm Finn." The BFG responded, not questioning Puck's correction, but Puck still kind of wanted to punch him in the face. "Finn Hudson. Mark and me, we were good friends in the program. He told me a lot about you."

Puck hesitated; he eyed the hand like it was actually squeezing his heart in his chest rather than the giant's words. But then he dimly remembered Mark telling him about his roommate, how the guy had no brain-to-mouth filter and wasn't always sure when he caused people pain, and Puck realized that oh, this must be him. All six feet and three inches of him. Puck took the guy's hand.

They shook hands, and Finn could tell that Noah was more than a little weary with his firm but not totally there grip, as if he was holding something back. The contrast of Noah's golden skin against his lighter one was familiar, as was their borderline delicacy, but Noah's hands were more calloused than he remembered Mark's being. He recalled his friend's stories of how Noah used to play guitar for Mark and dig in the dirt with him, but those days were long ago – these calluses were probably more recent, from wielding cold steel, gripping wheels, and handling death on a regular basis. That didn't mean they weren't just as warm as Mark's hands had been, though.

"So are you, you know, excited?" Finn asked when the contact broke. He didn't pay much thought to the way Noah's hand hovered in the air for a second, and then settled gently on the single duffel in his lap. Noah glanced up at him for a moment, and it reminded Finn of Mark's look that said 'are you, you know, an idiot?' It kind of surprised him, the resemblance, even though it shouldn't have, and Finn could only stare back.

Puck took in the Giant – Hudson's dumbstruck expression, and rolled his eyes, brushing off the stare as either another stab at his handicap, or another stab at his likeness to _him_. "Fucking ecstatic," Puck mumbled, focusing ahead as he maneuvered his chair between two people, out the way of a cart, and around a corner. He heard Hudson apologize to someone else he bumped into as he followed, before Puck felt him catch up and keep pace with easy long strides. Hudson was apparently trying to make his first friend on Pandora by attempting small talk. But Puck so wasn't: he felt kind of sick again, actually.

"That's cool, me too." Hudson replied brightly, seemingly unfamiliar with sarcasm, and Puck wouldn't have been surprised if the guy actually started skipping along beside him. "This whole thing's pretty cool, you know? It's like that ancient TV show my Grandpa used to talk about all the time. Terra Nova, or something like that? Except like, without the dinosaurs and stuff." Puck just grunted an acknowledgment, because he didn't know what the hell the dude was talking about. He'd never really had the luxury of watching television.

Hudson continued to praise and assure him of how awesome the place was, even if everything beyond the fence outside wanted them dead, until finally they came to the end of the hallway. People were flowing to either the left or right, but their various styles of clothing gave nothing away as to what was in either wing of the corridor. He didn't notice he'd stopped his chair until Hudson's voice called him again. "Hey man, you're going to the science department right? It's this way."

Puck followed him to the right, not knowing how the guy knew that already but whatever. And just like that, Hudson took the lead for a bit, still talking a mile a minute about plants and food and other shit that Puck just started to tune out, grunting in response when he guessed it was appropriate. He wasn't trying to be rude, but he was tired and irritated. Staying just behind the giant and his long strides annoyed him, but the crowd was thickening and he wasn't sure where he was going anyway, so it was just whatever.

Rolling through the sea of scrubs and lab coats and casual-wear, Puck's arms started to feel sluggish and heavy. It was weird, until he remembered that he hadn't worked his arms this much in almost six years – and that thought just made Puck all the more tired, which still didn't make sense since he'd been "asleep" for just as long, so shouldn't he be a ball of energy or something? Maybe it didn't count, since he'd been in a cramped chamber rather than on a bed – but then, being in the military, he hadn't slept in a proper bed for a while either, so…huh.

"…into the bio-lab." Hudson was saying as Puck drifted back into attention. And if it was possible, he sounded more excited than when he'd been going on about…whatever he'd been going on about. Puck turned into the dimmed room after the giant, relieved that they'd finally found the place, and almost instantly he felt the change in atmosphere that caused his hands to slow on his wheels. Or maybe it was the weight of his headache that slowed him down. Hudson continued ahead. "I guess we're gonna be in here a lot."

The room was tinted blue. Puck didn't know whether they installed special bulbs into the ceiling, or if the rinsed air's glow came from the many glass tanks around him; lamps, shown through the liquid in the tanks, refracted blue reflections onto shiny metal surfaces, and cast shadows onto Puck's chair. Inside the tanks themselves were variously shaped and colored plants that he felt like he'd seen before, but knew he couldn't have. The room sounded with the voices of scientists, the beeping of holographic screens, and the whir of some machines deeper into the lab. He thought he even heard some faint music. And he smelled something sort of sweet. Puck paused to gaze into one of the tanks at eye-level as he rolled by.

It looked like a simple vine at first, colored like a green grape and thick like a small rope, and it wasn't attached to anything so Puck thought it should have been dead. And yet, suspended in the strange blue liquid, the plant seemed to have kept growing after being cut – one end curled inward to spiral around the thick of the plant, hugging itself, while the other frayed end grasped out into the liquid for soil that wasn't there. Looking closer, Puck thought he glimpsed a pair of eyeballs attached to the vine, and he startled back a bit because, what the hell, the blurry eyes were staring right back at him and that was just insane. But then he realized that it was only his reflection, and he could have slapped himself. Cryo had really done something to his brain.

Puck rolled to the next plant at his level, ignoring the scientist observing it who gave him a weird look – the kind of familiar weird that meant that the person was wondering why the hell a crip' was in the bio-lab. But Puck brushed it off.

The second plant resembled a cactus but was 'S' shaped, with a spherical bulb sprouting from each end. It was colored like a deep purple orchid and lined with short, barb-like spines whose tips glowed lavender in the blue liquid. Like the vine, the cactus plant was obviously still alive. In fact, when Puck leaned forward to get a closer look, it almost seemed to be pulsing...and yeah, he was pretty sure that one wasn't actually his imagination. The bulbs on the ends contracted in a synchronized rhythm, like they were lungs or something. Huh. Time to move on.

Puck backed his chair up to continue down the aisle after Hudson, who was introducing his self to a couple of woman in lab coats ("Hi there. Finn Hudson: Avatar driver.") But as Puck did so, the true source of the room's blue glow caught his eye. It was something big in his left periphery. He turned his head, and there, in the space between two tanks containing something that looked like polka-dotted mushrooms, he saw it on the other side of the rack. Curious, Puck wheeled his chair to the end of the row and turned to enter the core of the bio-lab, immediately meeting the sight of the two largest tanks in the lab, the sound of the scientists who flitted around them, and the noise of a huge claw-like machine retracting into the ceiling. The cylinder tanks were full of the same blue liquid that the plants had been floating in, Puck noticed. Except, the things in these tanks were much, much bigger than the polka-dotted mushrooms.

They were bodies.

Puck heard Hudson say something behind him before suddenly the Giant strode past him and up to the first tank, peering inside. "Oh man, that's awesome! Wow. Dude, come look at these!"

But all of a sudden, Puck didn't want to. Rather, he kind of wanted to turn around and roll all the way back to Earth. Or throw up. Or both. He patted the urn's shape in the duffel on his lap, and it was the only thing that kept him from hyperventilating. He really didn't feel like seeing any more lifeless bodies, any time soon. Especially not lifeless bodies that bore any resemblance to _him_and reminded Puck of all the regrets he'd ever had.

"Hey, what's up guys?" Another guy's voice greeted. They both looked up to see a man in glasses and a lab coat coming around from the other side of the second tank with a holographic clipboard. He had short brown hair swept in a bowl cut towards the front, blue eyes behind thick black glasses, and a friendly smile on his young, clean shaven face. "You must be the newbs."

"Yeah, hey." Hudson greeted with a grin. He practically vibrated with excitement, and Puck could see it in the way he vigorously shook the shorter dude's hand. "I'm Finn Hudson. This is Noah Puckerman."

"Prefer Puck." Puck mumbled again. Glasses turned to appraise him and Puck stared back, waiting for the guy to give him the usual 'why did they send a guy in a chair?' look, but strangely it never came. Glasses stuck his hand out to Puck next and he shook it warily, not breaking eye contact. If he didn't know any better, Puck would say that the guy looked understanding.

"Name's Artie." Glasses introduced. "Artie Abrams. Used to be in a chair myself but they did the operation a year before I came here. Welcome to Pandora." And he said it with such a casualness that Puck couldn't think for a second. The guy got an operation. Puck hadn't really thought about getting one, too much other stuff on his mind with everything going on, but he knew that big operations like restoring a person's legs took a lot of money and then some luck. Puck knew that even if he started to consider it, he sure didn't have the money, and to date he'd been about as lucky as a leprechaun choking on a rabbit's foot – which is to say, not lucky at all. But then, he hadn't been planning to dwell on it anyway, so it was whatever.

"Aw man, they got huge!" Hudson exclaimed. Puck and…Abraham? No, Puck and…eh, Glasses, turned to see the Giant pressed up against the glass of the second tank. The way he was trying not to bounce on his toes spiked Puck's curiosity, but he still hesitated to move his chair forward. "This is awesome. Dude, come look at me! I look just like me! Except, you know, blue and…stripey. With a tail. And I'm not naked."

"Yeah they fully mature on the flight here." Artie explained, smiling at Finn before turning glancing back at Noah – Puck, who stared at Finn with this conflicted expression on his face.

Artie found it weird that the guy wasn't jumping at the chance to see his Avatar. Even Artie, who'd come three voyages before, still got caught up with fascination whenever a new body came in. His parents were neuroscientists in the program, so Artie had grown up learning about the mechanics of synchronizing DNA and mental connections. As soon as he'd turned sixteen, his parents allowed him to officially enter the program and, with their connections, join the staff on Pandora – he'd been on the planet ever since, studying the new brains placed (almost literally) in his hands. For just as long, he'd observed the eagerness of newcomers to see the growth from the little mixed species embryo on Earth, to the new body's full nine to twelve feet of height on Pandora. Finn's reaction was typical, but Puck's was new; the guy looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.

Artie stared at Puck, trying to figure him out. Being raised by neuroscientists meant that Artie had learned more than a few things about how the mind works, and how it reflects in one's body language. Humans were harder to read without mobile ears and tails to give them away, but the signs were there. Puck was scowling, dark eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes shifted from Finn to tank A, where Finn's Avatar resided. His gloved hands clenched on his wheels, as if he was planning to move forward, before seeming to reconsider and releasing.

Puck did this a few times before he raised his hands to the black duffel in his lap and smoothed over its surface. Artie didn't think Puck even realized that he did it, but the movement was slow and gentle, almost like a caress, and Artie wondered what could have been in the bag. The droop in Puck eyelids told him that the guy was tired, most likely from the trip, but there was also something else, something like…sadness. It was the way that distress increased whenever Puck lingered on the tank that tipped Artie off.

He remembered Mark Puckerman's file. Mark had been in the program on Earth for some time before he'd been approved to space travel, and from what Artie had read, Mark really had the potential and skills to back up his PhD: the prints of his brain activity had been impressive, one of the best Artie had seen. Artie, like many other people at the time, had brushed off the fact that Mark was born with a twin brother – because in their society, siblings often ended up divided by the government's needs, and with twins, that usually meant one ended up in the military; the chances that Mark's brother would even survive until the 10th voyage was iffy.

But sometimes, the universe throws people for a loop, because now Mark was dead and his twin brother sat right there, under Artie's scrutiny. And with the thought of Mark Puckerman's death, Artie realized that Puck must've been thinking about his brother while he stared determinedly at Finn's blue body. Artie could bet that Puck didn't want to face Mark's Avatar, because it would be weird to see his dead brother's face in a genetically manipulated way. And maybe Artie could've understood the sadness that weighed so obviously in Puck's eyes, to have to be reminded that his brother should've been there.

Still…Artie knew it would be cold to say, but he didn't understand why Puck's shoulders were hunched so far forward, or why he kept skimming his hand over his duffel like a deeply rooted nervous habit. Surely Puck couldn't have been _that_affected. After all, he couldn't have actually known his brother for very long – the military drafted people while they were still young, to get a head start and futilely attempt population control by recruiting boys before they hit puberty. Puck probably hadn't seen his brother since before they were even ten. And yet…Puck looked like he'd lost a lifelong partner and half of himself. With the way Puck sort of brushed off his comment about being in a wheelchair a few minutes before, Artie guessed that the handicap was actually one of the furthest things from his mind.

And it was perplexing to Artie, who'd cursed the world daily during his years between the accident and his operation. He watched Puck finally grip his wheels securely and roll up beside Finn, as if rolling everywhere was the most natural thing in the world. And then Puck's hands resettled on his duffel bag, absently but almost desperately. And right then, tuning back into his surroundings as Finn enthusiastically turned to address him, Artie officially declared Noah "Puck" Puckerman a mystery he'd yet to encounter.

"The proprioceptive simulations seem to work pretty well." Finn said. And yeah, from his earlier exclamations and generally dopey countenance, a person wouldn't guess that he would know big words like that (Finn's mom always just said "That's nice honey" when he started talking science on the phone.) But Finn Hudson's files were impressive too, though less so than Mark's, and Artie knew there was a reason why he'd been approved for the 10th voyage.

"Yeah, they've got great muscle tone," Artie replied happily, mind refocused on his work with a learned quickness. He looked down at the holographic screen in his hands and pressed a few buttons, moving some panels before reading the data for tanks A and B. "They've been in there since you guy's shipped out, so once you link in, it should feel familiar. Just, don't start running or anything too rigorous right away, or your bodies might go into shock."

"No running," Finn repeated with a determined expression. "Got it. So…when do you think we'll be able to link in?"

Artie looked from Finn to Puck, who had turned to focus on him but actually started to throw sidelong glances at tank B. His hands gripped his wheels tightly, like he was holding himself back. His jaw clenched too. After a moment, Puck's gaze wandered back to him, and Artie blinked before turning back to Finn just in case Puck started to wonder why he kept staring.

"Um, it'll take a few hours to get them decanted but…" He glanced at his screen again, "You guys can actually take them out tomorrow."

"Cool." Finn grinned, and Artie decided that he liked the taller man a little bit more since he showed his emotions and didn't hurt Artie's brain like Puck did. Artie watched as Finn rested his large hand on Puck's shoulder and spoke down. "Hey dude, I'm pretty sure yours in over here. Let's check it out. I'm sure it looks just like you."

Puck gave Finn this grimace that Artie couldn't quite read, and Finn just smiled back and patted his back. Puck rolled his eyes and huffed, but eventually moved to round tank B, with Finn crowding from behind and urging him forward. Artie watched, wanting to see Puck's reaction, but then somebody called his name from across the lab. Artie hesitated, wanting to take in Puck's expression. It was distorted through the blue amniotic fluid in the tank, so he wasn't sure if the scowl was an illusion or not. Artie sighed, and with a final glance at the two 10s, turned to meet Will over by the link room.

Meanwhile, Puck dared to actually look at the body in tank B, suddenly feeling wide awake. He started at the feet.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, since his mental portrayal of the Singers had been screwed up. Maybe, since it was his brother's avatar, Puck had unconsciously pictured the thing to have his twin's feet except, you know, bigger and blue. Well, they were big alright: at least twice as big in length and width – and they were blue, the tops of them a smooth cyan and the bottoms with an almost rosy blue-violet tint. But actually, the shape of them was familiar, with subtle veins under the skin and everything. Puck knew his twin's feet, and besides the fact that the avatar's were big and blue, they really weren't that different from any human's he'd ever seen.

Slightly encouraged by the connection, Puck's eyes drifted further up to the body's equally familiar (though bigger and blue) ankles. It was almost comical, the hardness with which Puck scrutinized the underappreciated body parts, and to other people, it may have seemed like longing for his own ankles that he couldn't move. In truth though, it was the scientist who'd never truly disappeared within Puck, awakening to make observations.

It was beyond anything he'd ever imagined.

The avatar's legs looked completely hairless, covered in nothing but miles of even cyan skin and decorated by slightly darker stripes. The legs were indeed muscled, and long of course: Puck had read that full grown males averaged about 3 meters – that's anywhere from 9 to 12 feet, one having a record of 3.9 meters, and it was no wonder their feet were so big. And…it could have been a trick of the light, or an illusion resulting from the tank's blue liquid, or something else, but the avatar's body seemed to be glowing. Puck focused and soon pinpointed tiny pricks of light, littering the avatar body in random yet seemingly deliberate patterns. As if it wasn't enough that its skin was _blue_, now his brother's avatar sparkled? Well…he couldn't say he was all that surprised. It even made him want to smile, beneath the painful tugging in his chest. Puck's eyes tracked the sparkles up the avatar's thighs, marveling at whomever's ability it was to alter and amplify his brother's body in such a way. One hand briefly rested on his duffel.

The avatar had a narrow and elongated waist, and an apparent happy trail of sparkles lead from where the body's umbilical cord connected, down between its legs. (Puck's urge to smirk intensified when he thought of his twin literally having a sparkly dick, but from where he sat in his chair, he couldn't see what the thing's private area looked like.) Puck was distracted momentarily as something moved by its thighs, and when he looked, he was shocked to make out the long blue tail curling around the body in the blue liquid. It was almost whip-like, and a tuft of darkness bobbed the end – Puck was pretty sure it was hair. He unsuccessfully tried to battle his disbelief as he continued to analyze the body. He'd heard plenty from his twin during their stolen visits, and he'd read up on the information himself if he ever found time, but seeing everything right if front of him now, with only glass separating him from the truth was…imponderable.

The rest of the avatar's musculature was sharply defined, with pronounced pectorals and impressive arms that matched the legs, all painted with dark patterned stripes and glowing freckles. The avatar's hands, too, were just like his brother's only bigger. Puck forced himself not to linger there though, since he would've taken eternities longer than at the feet. Too many memories were associated with their hands. He moved past the broad shoulders, up the elongated neck, to the achingly familiar jaw-line: softly curved, with a slightly jutting chin.

A trail of glowing freckles crookedly arched from the lower left corner of the chin to the upper right, stopping just beneath a pair of full, smooth looking lips. The lips, a rosy blue-violet, were thankfully a much darker shade than his brother's had been after his kiss with death, and Puck put forth a great effort of remaining aloof through his observation. (He couldn't afford to remember his brother's kisses right then.) The same shade highlighted the tip of the nose, which was flat and snout-like. Not at all like his or his twin's. Puck's eyes followed the gradual broadening from the colored tip up to the wide bridge between soft blue eyelids, which fluttered over rapidly moving eyes. Dark eyebrows relaxed above, and darker eyelashes fanned below against slightly higher cheekbones than what Puck remembered, but their fullness was the same. (He could remember countless nights of lying next to his sleeping brother, admiring the way the other's eyelashes cast shadows on his rounded cheeks in the dark…)

The whole face matched the light blue and cyan of the rest of the body. The dark lines on the forehead sprouted from the eyebrows and bridge of the nose, reaching upward in V formation before disappearing beneath the thick hairline. The bioluminescent sparkles relatively followed the paths and spread out over the eyes like the wings of a bird. The cheeks were marked with the same dark bands that wrapped the torso and arms from behind, and the overall pattern reminded Puck of pictures he'd seen when he was younger: pictures of the Bengal Tiger, which had gone extinct long before he was born. On each cheek, three lines of the freckles gathered near the nose and feathered fiercely outwards, just like whiskers. The ears, aligned with the eyes, further enforced the felinity of the body with their openness, large lobes, and softly pointed tips. Their internal cartilage progressed from tinted blue-violet to even rosier shades of purple, and every now and then, the ears twitched along with the tail.

From the time Puck first rolled over to tank B, there had been a subtle drum beat pulsing at the back of his thoughts. He paid it no attention, figuring that it was the sound of his own heart, so he didn't react until the sound increased to the point where the heavy _whooshing_ was all he could hear; he eventually realized that it was the avatar's heartbeat, and it was so loud that he'd mistaken it as his own. _Boom, thud…Boom, thud…Boom, thud…_so it steady rhythm was familiar and offered him a comfort that he'd been lacking for a while, and as he tuned into it, his hands settled over a bump in his duffle. He remembered laying his head on his brother's chest and just, listening.

Puck stared at the face of the avatar which, even if blue and sparkly and sharpened, looked so much like his brother – and he pretended that the thrumming heart meant his brother was alive. The strong, unceasing beat of a bass drum, so insistent that it seemed it would never falter. Unyielding, reliable…yet at the same time, so vulnerable. Any sudden shock or formidable blow could change its tempo, and for a terrifying moment, Puck expected the avatar's heartbeat to stutter to a halt, just like his twin's had, with him uselessly sitting there. All he could do was desperately reach out with his mind. But even then, the drumming pounded over his thoughts.

And miraculously, the beat marched on.

"-ah? Noah. Hey man, are you okay?"

Puck blinked, and all at once, the heartbeat was pulled away from him, returning to the body in the tank, and Puck's attention funneled backwards into his own surroundings. Voices, and the beeping of machines; the room outside tank B filtered back into Puck's senses, bringing the unidentified sweet smell and faint sound of music into which the avatar's heartbeat blended. Puck blinked again, and he latched onto Hudson's towering presence beside him. He looked up to see Hudson watching him carefully.

"…Sorry?"

"I asked if you're okay, dude." Finn repeated. "You kind of zoned there for a minute. Still feeling sick?"

Puck didn't answer right away, instead turning his face away from him. Now that Hudson mentioned it, his headache began to stalk its way back to the forefront of his head. He sighed, remembering the weight of his fatigue. His shoulders slumped, and his hands fell away from his duffel to rest on his wheels. Puck backed up his chair, turning slightly away from the tank so as to not be sucked in again.

"'M fine, Hudson. Just tired." He didn't look up, but could sense Finn's nod of understanding.

Just a few seconds later, another voice was calling both of them. Puck raised his head to see the guy, Glasses, returning with his hands free.

"Hey you guys, I need you to follow me to the computers." Artie said when he reached them. He gave Puck this lingering look that Puck wasn't sure what to make of, before turning to Finn. "Will told me that Doctor Sue wants to meet you once she's out. That shouldn't be for another half hour or so, so you'll have time to Log now."

While it took a minute for Puck to collect his thoughts and make the connection, Finn got it right away. Artie could tell, because suddenly, Finn's dark eyes popped wide open and his jaw dropped in a silent gasp, and he straightened his shoulders which made him seem impossibly taller.

"Doctor _Sue_?" Finn murmured disbelievingly. "Sue Sylvester. Oh my god, I get to meet _the_ Sue Sylvester and I haven't even been on Pandora for a day. That is _awesome_! She's like, a _legend_."

Artie just smiled. "Yeah, I guess she is." He turned, and motioned for the men to follow him as he started walking. "I'm guessing you've read her books on Pandoran Botany. What about her documentaries on the school? You know she actually introduced the Singer children to organized sports."

"I know, man. It's so cool." Finn grinned dopily up at the ceiling, starting to follow. "I used to watch a lot of the basketball games. It was great when the adults played too because they're so lethal, you know? They moved around that huge court like ninjas or something." He stopped, which made Artie stop too. He followed Finn's gaze over his shoulder, and sure enough, Puck hadn't moved at all. "Yo, Noah, you coming dude?"

Puck tore his eyes from the tank containing (what was now) his avatar. Artie studied his expression and found that the scowl was gone, leaving a blank mask, but his eyes drooped lower than when Artie left. "It's Puck, Hudson." Puck corrected, half-heartedly. But he gripped his wheels and rolled forward toward them without another glance backwards. Puck met Artie's stare as he approached and held it, unwaveringly. The blue glow from the tank played tricks on Puck's face and darkened his eyes, deepening them into never-ending pits, and Artie almost lost himself before he remembered the time and broke the contact.

"Well then. If you're good, let's go guys."

What was his problem? Puck wondered as he continued forward with his sight trained on Glasses' back. He passed by Hudson and ignored the BFG's earnest, concerned energy waves. He focused on the lab coat, forcing himself to center his thoughts on the guy's odd and recurring stares. Puck refused to cast a last glance at the body in the tank. He could feel it reaching out to him though, and it slowed him down – the glow at his back wrapped around his shoulders, clutched at his throat, constricted his chest from the inside.

The heartbeat, though fading with the distance Puck put between them, left a ghostly echo that bounced off the walls of his memory. Every '_boom, thud…boom, thud',_ sounded like something else. Sounded like an empty grave, calling out to him from light-years away. For a minute, he longed to be back in cryo, where he knew he wouldn't have to hear the voice in his dreams - because undoubtedly, the voice would haunt him that night, and for many more nights to come. He carried too much guilt for it not to.

Because_ 'boom, thud'¸ _said,_ "Help me…" _And _'boom, thud', _meant,_ "…some-one."_

…Damn, he was so tired.


	3. Interlude I

**Part I: Interlude I**

* * *

_'Hey…Hudson, is this thing on?'_

_'Yeah, Artie just set it up for you. Um…press that button on the top. When the flashing red light turns solid, the picture should come on and it'll start recording.'_

**_…Powering up..._****_Log Entry:_****_ 1 – _****_Location:_****_ Link Center – _****_Date:_****_ 05/12/2161 – _****_LST:_****_ 21:34:21:05 / _****_Researcher:_****_ Puckerman, N…_****_I.D.#:_****_ 900361020 – _****_P.I.:_****_ Sylvester, S…_****_I.D.#:_****_ 900360139_**

_'Oh.' _The tan guy with the Mohawk said when the blue holographic screen suddenly lit up in front of him, with an off centered image of his self. Numbers played in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, as well a solid red dot that signified a recording in progress, and a small photo ID tag. A long, pale arm shot forward over the speaker's shoulder and blocked the screen for a minute as it adjusted the little flat camera. After some tampering, the focus shifted from the Mohawked man's ear, to his whole face. It was a slight shock, since he'd been avoiding mirrors for so long (since they reminded him of his twin…), but he masked his expression well to the tall man behind him, whose face was too high to be in the shot._ ''Kay…cool. Uh…thanks.'_

_'No problem, dude. I'm gonna go over and set mine up with Artie.' _The tall man, Hudson, clapped the Mohawked man on the shoulder._ 'You good?'_

_'Yeah.' _The Mohawk nodded. He waited for Hudson to wander over to another computer before turning back to his own. He sighed as he readjusted the small camera again. For a second it zoomed in, getting an up-close image of his exhausted eyes, before going back to normal. Those eyes locked onto their counterparts in the screen's copy of the man's face. He swallowed, before beginning.

_'Um…yo…'s up, bro? It's Noah. I know you're not…that you aren't really here. But we look alike so I'm just gonna…act like it's you. If that's okay. I don't really know what to say to a camera. But, you know, it's always been easiest – talking to you. Plus I doubt anybody's gonna actually watch mine since I'm not the real scientist. So, um…yeah._

_'So, this is my first video log. The thing says it's May twelfth, year's twenty-one sixty-one, time's about twenty-one thirty-six. It's still pretty early, but, honestly I'm about to drop... It's hard to even move my chair 'cause my arms feel like they turned into sandbags or something. That cryosleep, dude, it was a bitch. Almost felt like when I woke up in the hospital. Remember how much morphine they had to pump into me? And, oh man, your face back then…Don't think I'd ever seen you so mad, bro…' _Noah sighed and took a few moments to run a hand over his Mohawk._ '…Or so worried…_

_'Look. I know I told you before, but I'm fine. I don't care about the damn chair. I'm still Puckzilla, I still got my guns out. And… anyway, bro…you should know, that I'd take a thousand of those stupid bombs if it meant... you know. That you were okay. I mean, I wish that…'_ He paused, narrowing his eyes as he brushed away the intense look of pain that touched his face. _'I wish…things had been different. I wish a lot of things had been different, bro. And I wish that you were…here. Next to me. It's so weird without you Mar–man…I mean, it's crazy here, and I haven't even seen everything. You should've seen outside, it was like, a wasteland. Nah, worse than that, it looked like fucking Earth. There's no color except gray, gray, gray everywhere. It's just sad. Even the sky, dude, what kind of crap is that? I remember all the holograms you showed me, of the sky at night and the tall trees and like, how the ground glows and stuff. That stuff was amazing, you know? And I know you were looking forward to it – hell, I was too, even if I knew I couldn't go. But we get here and it's like, death warmed over. It's all so loud and chaotic, just like the army, and I'm sitting there like where are the waterfalls, or the damn trumpets and wedding bells? Something. But then there's this big-ass fence blocking nature out and it's like wow, these people suck. Hopefully when I go out with Hudson tomorrow it'll be more…painted in rainbows, or whatever the hell you call it. Used to call it…_

_'Oh, that reminds me. I met your roomie, Lurch? Yeah, he's great. Thought you were just exaggerating when you said his mouth could swallow me like a python. I see what you mean though, he's probably a nice guy, but…I guess I'm just too tired to deal with his acclaimed awesomeness right now. He's behind me with that guy…Abrahams? I think Hudson said his first name was Artie. But yeah, dude with the glasses – told us on the way here that he's a neuroscientist after his parents. Makes me wish Mom and Dad had been in the program, then maybe we would've both been automatic. I mean, you know, I was never jealous, that you got in; I'm actually glad you did, 'cause there's no telling what could've happened to you if you were in my place…But then I guess, that ended up happening anyway, didn't it? And look where that got us…really switched roles. I tell you, the universe has a shit sense of humor. I mean I'm the one who's supposed to be…' _

Noah looked away from the screen and sighed heavily. He stayed silent, pushing back emotions that he couldn't let loose yet. It was harder because of the stress already straining his brain. Eventually, he continued under the mask of a lighter tone. _'So anyway, yeah. Here I am, the substitute scientist. Me and Hudson actually saw the avatars a little while ago. Yours looks just like…us, I guess. Same face…you know, if we looked like a cat. It's blue, with a tail, and get this, I didn't know the avatars had freckles. And they glow. By the way, and I find this hilarious, you probably have a sparkly dick. Oh, and it's bigger than I expected – ha, the whole avatar I mean – like, it's a lot larger than the little baby they showed us back on Earth, and way more lifelike than your holograms. It has your eyelashes…I don't know, when I think about it, I don't feel weird about the fact that I'll be spending a lot of time in your body. Gonna be all up in there. Heh…I wonder why that is.' _Noah raised an eyebrow and smirked at the screen suggestively. It was an old habit of his, falling to flirtation and euphemisms whenever he wanted to change the subject – and oddly to most people, when faced with his twin, there was no exception.

_'Hey Puck, you could start wrapping it up.' _A voice interrupted from somewhere off screen. Noah glanced over his shoulder to see Artie at the end of the line of computers. He was fiddling with something in his ear, and Noah recognized it as a wireless headset._ 'Just got a memo that Doc's coming out of the Link in five. We should head over.'_

Noah nodded, then turned back to the screen, releasing a heavy breath as he scanned the face of his "twin". _'Okay, well, I guess that's it for now. Apparently we're about to go meet Sue Sylvester. And yeah, that's __**the **__Doctor Sue Sylvester. Funny…I know you'd probably freak out right now since she's like, your hero and stuff. Man, I would love to see your face if you were here right now…' _Another pause. _'But…I guess I'll just have to make a good impression for the both of us. I know she's supposedly scary as hell but, don't worry, you know I'm nothing if not determined. I'll see if she can get her to sign the copy of the manual I brought with me, just for the hell of it. Maybe I could even ask her some stuff about the Singers. Or hey, maybe I won't have to ask and we'll meet some for ourselves tomorrow…Just like we always dreamed.' _

Noah pressed his lips together in a firm line and, after some thought, reached up to press the camera's zoom button. The picture magnified the blazing promise in his eyes. _'But bro…little brother…I just want you to know that whatever happens, I'll believe that you're here with me. Even if I don't see you. We promised each other that, back when they first separated us, remember? We've been in it together since the beginning, and that's never going to change. I swear…And…I know I told you before, but…I love you, too, Mark. I hope you know that, wherever you are..._

_'…So…I guess I'll see you later. Okay?'_

**_…Powering down..._****_LET:_****_ 21:59:03:16_**


End file.
